I don't have a good grasp of the sectarian politics of Liverpool. Though I am often struck, as I arrive on the train each morning, by the way the anglican and catholic cathedrals dominate the skyline.

The Anglican Cathedral

The Catholic Cathedral. I'm told this is referred to affectionately as "Paddy's Wigwam" though I couldn't say whether the catholics, or those descended from Irish immigrants, consider this an affectionate term.

A couple of years ago in a "symbol of Christian unity" (which I suspect may have had something to do with modern art) a light was shone between the towers of the two cathedrals. Unfortunately the light chosen was a narrow red beam, creating the unfortunate impression that one cathedral had a laser sight carefully trained upon the other.

Growing up near Liverpool my sense of scale has always been reflected in the size of both of these buildings, old and new architecture on a mass scale, much more affecting than bigger buildings which are so much taller in fact. The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpr, for instance, are both hugely taller and their base building covers more ground area, but it doesn't actually seem as impressive as these buildings.Paddy's Wigwam is also referred to as the Mersey Funnel (play on the "Mersey Tunnel(s)").There's an old joke about why it's (approximately) round - so you can't hid in the corner when the collection plate comes round.

I think it's something about the way the cathedrals arise out of a "plain" of terraces. Skyskrapers, even large skyscrapers, surround by other skyscrapers don't have the same effect unless viewed from far enough away that even the skyscrapers around them look small.

The Mersey Funnel strikes me as a lot less derogatory-comment-disguised-as-a-joke than Paddy's Wigwam does, though I know so few Liverpudlians, let alone Catholic Irish ones, that I have no idea of the origin of the phrase or the contexts in which it gets used. So at the moment I'm accepting people's words that it's entirely affectionate and not a vieled insult.

That's the Liverpudlian sense of humour, which has quite a bite to it but is generally not meant to hurt. Having said that, I don't think I ever heard Paddy's Wigwam until I was an adult. That might be a different side of the river thing, though. Certainly from the Wirral side of the river ther Mersey Funnel seems an appropriate name.